What is considered a house trailer?

DownTheAvenue wrote:

SC camper wrote:
We have been living in our sticks and bricks neighborhood for eleven years. Neighborhood has HOA with covenants. We moved into this neighborhood because the covenants didnt prohibit rv campers. Covenant reads "No house trailer or mobile home shall be placed on any lot either temporarily or permanently". Further in the covenant stats "All boats, trailers and all vehicles other than automobiles shall be kept under suitable cover". We filed a request, with site plan, for a travel trailer cover(Adco designer) and location on our lot where the tt will be stored. Request was approved and its been no problem since.
Now there are other homeowners saying that campers are prohibited. Campers and rv's are "house trailers". Anyone dealt with this terminology in a HOA Covenant before? Thanks for any input.

Your best bet is to get the US Department of Housing's definitions of a mobile home and a RV, and the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association's definition of a recreational vehicle. Lacking any definition in your Covenants, those would be the go to definitions. Your state may have some as well, even your county, but they probably mirror the federal definition.

Suitable cover is so vague as to be meaningless. However, your HOA Board approved your cover, so the whole issue seems a moot point.

Your HOA Board as an example can make rule that no one can have a blue truck, but that does not mean every one has to get rid of their blue truck. But no one can buy a new blue truck. The Board can agree that from this point forward no RVs but they cant rescind the current rule for you.

FHA definitions can help but unless the covenant specifically calls out "as defined by FHA" (or similar). It is only supporting evidence and not definitive. As there is no standard universally applied definition, they are in a very weak contractual position to force you to remove it.

Also with your "blue truck" example. If you have an existing blue truck grandfathered in, you typically would be able to get another blue truck and be grandfathered still. The grandfathering establishes that you entered the HOA with the understanding you can have a blue truck, so it would be a change in the Contract terms to take that option away. This is important if you get a new RV, you have already established that you entered the HOA with the understanding that an RV is not a house trailer. Now if you went 10yrs without a blue truck, it becomes a gray area as it undermines the argument that having a blue truck was critical to your decision to accept a house with a HOA.

Again, if the OP has a letter stating that his RV is not a house trailer, he has a clear upper hand assuming there isn't a clause in the current HOA Contract that says they can change that rule. They would have to demonstrate that the letter was a mistake AND that it had no bearing on the OP buying the house.